Black Friday Shopping – Part 1

As you may not know, we have our yearly tradition (started about two years ago when we saw hoards of people inside OfficeMax) of getting up at 5:30 and quietly driving away to look for things on the cheap.

Our first year was the best because there was so much free stuff. We aquired $300 worth of free stuff (and a $100 LCD monitor. Not quite free, but a good price). Our first year, we went shopping at 8:00 so most of the good stuff was gone so we decided to get up early next year.

So, on our second year, we got some more free stuff. Not as much as before, but still free. Pa got a 19″ LCD monitor that year. So now, everybody in the family had LCDs . . . except Luke, he still had the clunky 19″ CRT.

This year, after we were stuffed from Thanksgiving dinner, we all piled on the couch, turned on the laptop and cruised the Black Friday ads. We checked out the ads from Circuit City, Staples, Officemax and Costco and assembled a shopping list from them. I was rather dissapointed from the lack of free stuff. I mean sure, there was a $100 computer, but I mean come on! Where’s the free shredders!? Anyway, I saw a $20 Wireless mouse which caught my eye (since I’ve been wanting to go wireless for a long time)

So, next day (Friday) at 5:30, we got up, put on sweatshirts, jackets, warm clothes and huddled in the car and drove off to Staples. There was still a line and people had yet to open the doors so we waited in the car ’till they opened. Unfortunately, they had people come in the store in orderly sections rather than the giant human stampede (which is half of the fun). We were at the end of the line waiting. Some friends of ours came up behind us so we talked. The Staples guys had a box of doughnuts out. We thought we’d wait ’till we’d get up to the front of the line where the doughnuts were but we saw cheaters in back (where we were) who walked forward, got doughnuts and went to the back! Well, if they could do it, we sure could. So we did.

When we finally got in, I dove for the very last wireless mouse. Unfortunately, somebody beat me to it! He said, “hands off fluffy!” (I had a puffy vest on) I retorted with “right back atcha!” Then he spit on me! Well, we were rolling around the room with the mouse between us. Fortunately, I was in the electroncs section and beat him off with a surge protector. Than there was a huge cheer! (’cause the other guy was rather ugly and therefor was the bad guy) Just then, the bad guy was just about to throw a $40-off Western Digital Hard Drive at me but I hid behind the monitors. By that time, he was winded and I hid under the cashier.

In all honesty, I went to the electronics section and found a bunch of mice there. I took one. We also got a pack of blank DVDs and a $7 1.0GB flash drive.

Part 2 will be posted up later.